Saturday, January 31, 2009

Quiz 3 -- "the watergate" of this season -- report

Very controversial (but entertaining) quiz -- accusations of (random) question cleansing, insider trading of questions and blatant attempts to sabotage "Team One" are still rife. Apurva, the QM, set himself an ambitious goal of 90% answerable questions -- while he fell short of that goal, he still managed an astronomical 80-85% answer rate. "Team One" and "Team Six" pretty much dominated the quiz, going neck to neck until the last few questions. Then came the QMs favorite "it's not a quiz, it's pictionary" long connect which skewed the standings in the end.

Quiz Teams (and standings):

Nishtha/Swapnil/Suyash (third place): Simply put, they were the victims of all the QMs (improper) actions. They were not awarded partial points or clarification attempts ("www" for cyperspace). A question that they answered correctly ("hobbit") was canceled -- a new process called "question cleansing" -- by the QMs whim, or may be he succumbed to the pressure from other teams (a k a "Team Six" :-)). If this had not been done, this team would have finished second. Moreover, just before the last long connect the QM decides to eject the team's president. Someone needs to call the human rights activists!

Ayan/Gaurav/Pranav/Srinivas: Suffered from another random "question cleansing" act ("mnemonics"). They had a couple of answers that could have gone either way; unfortunately, they chose wrong alternatives :-(

Abhay/Ayshwarya/Deepak/VarunAg: Team that was flustered right from the outset (for some well-known reasons :-)), but they never stopped giving some good answers.

Hetu/Pranjal/Varun/Vikram (second place): Beneficiaries of all the atrocities on "Team One". While they trailed all the way, they did well in the skewed "it's not a quiz, it's pictionary" long connect to force, and then win, the tie-breaker for second place.

Harsha/Murali/VarunG: Quick start off the blocks with some great answers (like "open source Cola") but then they took their foot off the gas.

Keshav/Shantanu/Vinay (first place): Gave some "great answers" to questions without reading the slides. It is rare (or, impossible) to see a question answered in a few milliseconds after the slide goes up. I will suppress the other incidents that also point to alleged, but inadvertent, "insider trading" :-)

League standings available at http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pad8OkPTEUANT0-QEnI_oTA


Need to rethink ban "question cleansing" and rethink the scoring system for long connects.

Update: For those who didn't get it, please note the sarcasm in this post (and most reports). Kurt Vonnegut, esp. Slaughter House Five, would be a good place to begin :-)

11 comments:

  1. lol we snatched defeat from the jaws of victory....the last X-Men connect screwed our 6 point lead...
    anyway keshav's team was really good, pretty seasoned quizzers,cograts!
    quite a raucous quiz! but great fun, good job apurva :)

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  2. My teammate is making up for my political incorrectness :-) .... Swapnil

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  3. I resent the implication that questions to team 6 were answered without reading the slides...just so happens that the ones on Olive Oyl (Shut up ye Bilge Rat) and Oz (Oscar Zoratser....) etc were really well known to me having seen them in previous quizzes during my undergrad years...hence a quick look at 2-3 words was enough to answer them. Also, in hindsight though it was unfair to have scrapped the hobbit question, it was the QM who proposed the idea first and we just nudged after that (who wouldn't when the points gap was so close?), but all in all a good quiz (long con was fine...anyone who didn't get it messed up..especially since the last pic was a magnet) and thought the QM was at his entertaining best.

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  4. Oh c'mon Tommy, don't take the last minute swing so bad :)

    That's the fun part about the Long connects, they can turn the tide of the game, so I think the scoring system was quite fair.

    - Varun

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  5. yeah true..long connects scoring has been ok....the scrapping of questions though was a turning point...but ultimately quiz master had the final word and he did a great job...so just one of those bad days for Tommy....since he publishes the reports..guess he has reasons to feel aggrieved

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  6. Totally agree with Keshav here. Well there is a course in CMU where they do tell u abt wife beating and 'rule of thumb'[dont ask me which course -:)] and I guess I am one of the last few users of lycos mail (where they do mention CMU in ultra fine print). So getting a few of those was a really lucky break but also added to the 'collusion theory'. Though I felt the 'Swimming English Channel' answer would have put that to rest forever :)
    Overall a very nice quiz put up by the QM and Team 6's heart goes out to team 1, but as keshav might have said , "only in hindsight" -:D

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  7. Anyway..all in all good quiz...we got very lucky...also feel that if Satya and Vyaas had been around, the results would have been quite different. Thanks Nishta, for covering for your aggrieved teammate..and just to reiterate - "I am not a crook" and "I did not have any relations with that Quiz Master" and unlike those 2 presidents, you can believe me...otherwise we would have got the long connect and the boomerang questions and not come up with the second best answer of the quiz - swimming the English channel...

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  8. Haha ... Sarcasm gone awry :-) ... Swapnil

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  9. There cudn't have been a better recommendation than 'Slaughterhouse five'. Pretty cool book.
    And for me atleast the sarcasm factor of the quiz reports makes it as enjoyable to read as being in the quiz itself. The posts are really fun and reflect a great effort from Swapnil. (No Sarcasm here :) )

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  10. Haven't read Slaughterhouse five but certainly get the sarcasm...Swapnil certainly puts a great deal of thoughts into his reports and they make for excellent reading...also love the fact that Apurva and Swapnil are always at it...livens up things..looking forward to next week's quiz by Vyaas, ought to be a blast

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  11. I hope Vyas knows he is conducting next weeks quiz :)

    On a side note, we (team 2) did get the long connect on the first try and still messed up :-)) (disastrous 4th)

    Speaking of Slaughter House 5, I was under the impression Swapnil was making a reference to the 'BQC' tradition of infant sacrifice to settle all debates.

    (You have to be a member of BQC to appreciate that)

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